I thought I would initiate a discussion about this. It seems to be a universal issue. In my experience, it seems almost ludicrous to venues when you start talking trying to negotiate a fair wage. Anyway, hoping to spark an interesting discussion.

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capt_carl wrote:

7evid wrote:

and, once you go black...

I like my coffee how I like my women: a little bold, a little bitter, and strong enough to keep me up all night long.

Sat Jan 21, 2012 6:58 pm

geminiwraith

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Joined: Wed Aug 26, 2009 4:09 amPosts: 655Location: Australia

Re: If you're working for free...

That's a great read. I think it's the same everywhere though.

When I was doing the rock DJ thing for small pubs out in the sticks i'd find myself at odds with management all the time in regards to requests. The venue would have a handful of people on a really slow night who would make constant requests, and these requests would more than likely fall outside the genre of "popular top 40" music. Now the problem was a lot of these requests were not to the owners liking because they were attempting to keep the place full of the trendy crowds in order to maximise bar sales. At 11PM on a Saturday night if the trendy crowd isn't there already, it isn't coming, so why not keep the people who are there happy and spending money? I've had owners stop the song mid way through to throw on some pop song which the patrons just don't want to hear.

When I started playing music in pubs and on community radio, it was instilled in me that part of the job was to read the audience and give them what they wanted. These people are NOT a captive audience. There are other places they can go. It's madness that these owners can think in such an archaic way, but I guess when business is bad you don't blame yourself right?

Seriously, I don't understand it. I always feel horrible asking the same 20 people to come see us.

I forwarded this to my band today. Hopefully we can tell the Denton bars to f**k off and start having 'genre nights' or something. Usually you're taking gigs like 30 minutes to an hour away from your fan base.

f**k gigging .

POST SCRIPT: I f**king love it and I'll do it for free for forever, I just wanna bitch.

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spook wrote:

Omni's beard is going to be on my taint.It was in a vision I had just the other day.